Now for the serious stuff?

THERE WAS a power outage in Grandview at around lunchtime when I went home. With my mother-in-law off to Pili, Lynn was all alone looking after the four kids who are not of school-age yet. So I had no other choice but to take out "turo-turo" viands and join them for lunch.

Unable to check my email via the home PC, I relied on my trusty Nokia handset to check my Gmail via WAP. There was only one new message in the inbox, short but very important. It said:

"Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you have qualified to continue the NPM discussions offline in Germany."

It seems that after the fun stuff that will end today, my immersion into New Public Management principles and techniques -- barring any hitches -- will continue in Deutschland, which gave the world Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire, Otto von Bismarck and the German Reich, Adolf Hitler and Nazism, and the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall.

Not to mention Oktoberfest, which is slowly becoming synomous with San Miguel Beer, a Filipino icon like no other but whose flagship Pale Pilsen is in dire straits.